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The harder it is to get that phone fixed, the longer its owner is cut off from vital connections. The gap is even wider between Black and white Americans who make less than $30,000.Ī broken screen or dead battery is a major inconvenience for anyone, but for those who depend on smartphones to access the internet, it’s a much more serious problem. Someone who makes less than $30,000 a year is 14 percentage points more likely to say that mobile device repairability is very important than someone who makes over $100,000 a year.Īnd 53 percent of Black Americans say smartphone or tablet repairability is very important to them compared with about a third of white Americans. Lots of Americans want to be able to fix their possessions when they break, but consumers with low incomes and Black Americans are most likely to say it’s very important to them.

#YOU BREAK I FIX HOURS HOW TO#

Manufacturer instructions for how to do repairs are scarce, too.Īdding to the hurdles, the government says, manufacturers often suggest that it’s dangerous to have their products fixed by anyone other than their authorized technicians or that repairs by independent services will be of low quality. “Removable batteries can affect structural strength, slim design, and water resistance, which are innovations that consumers demand,” a Samsung spokesperson said.Įven if you or an independent repair shop manage to get into a hard-to-crack product, the FTC says replacement parts are harder to find than in the past. Phone makers counter that there are good reasons they’ve started sealing in batteries. “You’d drive thirty thousand miles and then get a new car.” “It’s like if the tires were welded to every car in America,” Wiens says.

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“I think it’s totally unconscionable that smartphones-the most widely used consumer product today-have glued-in batteries,” says Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixIt, a site that provides manuals and tools for at-home repairs and advocates for repairability. That affects both do-it-yourself fixers and independent repair shops.

Things have gotten worse for consumers who want to get their broken stuff fixed, according to a 2021 report from the Federal Trade Commission entitled “Nixing the Fix.”įor one thing, new products often have forbidding design elements such as nonstandard screws and glued-on parts, making it tough to access basic components like the battery in Andre’s phone. And nearly 6 out of 10 people don’t think consumers have enough choices as far as where to get certain things repaired. More than half of Americans say they have replaced at least one of the products CR asked about sooner than they wanted because they couldn’t find someone to fix it. We also asked about people’s attitudes and experiences with repairing their vehicles, large and small home appliances, and home entertainment products such as TVs and speakers.įor many products, there’s a gap between people’s desire to fix their possessions and their ability to get the repairs done. Smartphones were 1 of 5 product categories covered in CR’s recent survey. Perhaps in response, some companies are starting to lift long-standing barriers to repair. State lawmakers and members of Congress are putting forward new bills that could make it easier to fix the things you own.

Plus, it’s expensive for consumers: A new smartphone can cost many hundreds of dollars, while a simple fix might amount to $50 or $100.īut consumers might have some help on the way. “This tells a story about consumers who have an interest and a desire for repair, but feel frustrated and stymied by the market,” says Aaron Perzanowski, a professor at the Case Western Reserve University law school and author of a new book, “The Right to Repair” (Cambridge University Press, 2021).Įach failed fix adds to the staggering volume of harmful e-waste produced in the U.S., and stokes demand for new devices built with rare natural resources, Perzanowski says. For many, the cost of repairs was too high others said it was just too inconvenient. One-quarter of people who had a phone that broke set out to repair it but ended up replacing it, our survey found. adults conducted in November and December 2021 by Consumer Reports. Just 16 percent of Americans who had a phone break in the past five years say that the most recent time it happened, they fixed it at home or got it repaired professionally, according to a new nationally representative survey (PDF) of 2,075 U.S. If Andre manages to get his battery replaced, he’ll be outside the norm.

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